As we begin the new year, we have been inundated with media coverage of the past year and prognostication for what lies ahead. This is a reasonable thing to do. One might ask this of the mainline church, as well. What can we expect in the coming year and beyond? Unless one receives a prophetic word from God, we cannot be certain. It is impossible to anticipate the totally unpredictable, such as record hurricanes. Yet we can surely do a much better job than we have. This requires discipline not often practiced in the church. We are better at looking back to the 1950's than we are at looking forward at all. The Futurist magazine (http://www.wfs.org: click on The Art of Foresight, a .pdf file) gives some compelling reasons to practice futures studies and some methodologies to employ.

One incentive for understanding the times and rightly interpreting trends is that it can be profitable. A very familiar example of this is choosing investment options. Those who can see forces shaping markets and then better anticipate them will be able to make better investment decisions. While ministry is not about financial profit, most ministry ventures have financial implications. Embarking on ministries which will succeed is good stewardship, whereas pouring scarce dollars into failed ministry attempts is usually discouraging and wasteful.

Making sense of out of trends can also reveal red flags or warnings. From a young age we were taught to look both ways before crossing the street. Even if we did not sense any cars coming before we looked carefully, there might be one in the distance bearing down at high speed we need to know about.

Likewise emerging crises, or for that matter opportunities, may be just emerging, along with signs to tip us off. Jesus told his followers to "watch" regarding his coming again. Watchfulness is always in season with ministry.

Furthermore, a solid grasp on trends can give confidence to decisions. While it is impossible to avoid all risk, it can be reduced with solid insight. In these days where innovation and entrepreneurial ministry approaches are on the cutting edge, being able to do so with increased confidence is a real asset.

Another rationale for trend analysis is to get at the heart of a trend.

Analyzing the details within a trend can help separate truly significant developments from rapidly appearing and disappearing fads. A district superintendent once commented that praise music was a fad. That is proving not to be the case so those who dismissed it as such may have missed opportunities.

Observing where trends are going can help one get informed on forces affecting their field. Health-care planners, for instance, need to know what 's going on in biotech and medicine, values and public policy, labor supply, and population aging. Churches can benefit from tracking demographic changes, cultural shifts, generational issues, communications advances, musical tastes, and "the competition," to name but a few areas. The Research Office sees resourcing this very thing as a key component of its mission.

Motivation for gaining a better sense of the future is of little value unless one has the means to do so. The Futurist identifies a variety of techniques employed in futures studies. One of these is scanning, "an ongoing effort to identify significant changes in the world beyond the organization or group doing the scanning. Typically scanning is based on a systematic survey of current newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and other media indications of changes likely to have future importance. Scanning focuses mainly on trends - changes that occur through time - rather than events - changes that occur very quickly and generally are much less significant for understanding the future."

Three different means of working with trends are used in future studies. The first is called trend analysis: the examination of a trend to identify its nature, causes, speed of development, and potential impacts. Careful analysis may be needed because a trend can have many different impacts on different aspects of human life, and many of these impacts may not be apparent at first. Another approach is trend monitoring, where trends viewed as particularly important in a specific community, industry, or sector may be carefully monitored - watched and reported regularly to key decision makers. The third is trend projection: when numerical data are available, a trend can be plotted on graph paper to show changes through time. These lines can be extended into the future. This can become very sophisticated when techniques such as regression analysis are applied. Little sophistication is needed to project the general trend in United Methodist membership decline in the USA, unfortunately.

An additional technique is simulation, or gaming. Computers allow this to be done with very complex systems. A popular computer game called flight simulator approximates the experience of flying a plane, where changes in inputs, in this case controls, cause the simulated plane to respond as a real plane in real conditions. The same kind of mathematical formulas can be applied to valuable life situations.

Historical analysis seeks to find parallels in current events with past events. To the degree they are similar, it may be reasonable to infer that the current events may have similar consequences.

The final method identified by The Futurist is visioning. "Since futuring is about more than predicting, many futurists engage in the systematic creation of visions of a desirable future for an organization or an individual.

Typically, the futurist will start with a review of past events and the current situation, move on to envision desirable futures, and then identify specific ways to move toward a desirable future. A visioning procedure often prepares the way for more formal goal setting and planning."

The church can benefit much from paying more attention to likely futures.

This can help the church to be more proactive and not live out of delayed reactions to changes in the surrounding world. We see a wonderful depiction of this in I Chronicles 12:32" "the sons of Issachar understood the times to know what Israel should do." Most important, however, is to seek God's desired future and do all within our power, accompanied by God's power, to move into that future. Visioning is invaluable, to the extent that it involves discerning God's intentions for us and adopting that as our vision.

Goals and strategy can then be developed to realize the vision. Even the most discouraging trends do not guarantee a future which is an extension of that trend. Trends can be changed and even completely reversed, including the decline in the United Methodist Church.